The ground-breaking social psychological experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do. The experiment is filled with ingenious deception so the best way to understand it is to imagine you are taking part. So sit back, relax and travel back. The time is 1959 and you are an undergraduate student at Stanford University…
Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation. Dan Gilbert: The psychology of your future self.

Easily embarrassed? Study finds people will trust you more. If tripping in public or mistaking an overweight woman for a mother-to-be leaves you red-faced, don’t feel bad.

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that people who are easily embarrassed are also more trustworthy, and more generous. In short, embarrassment can be a good thing. Psychologist Dacher Keltner, a coauthor of the study, demonstrates a typical gesture of embarrassment “Embarrassment is one emotional signature of a person to whom you can entrust valuable resources. It’s part of the social glue that fosters trust and cooperation in everyday life,” said UC Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer, a coauthor of the study published in this month’s online issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Not only are the UC Berkeley findings useful for people seeking cooperative and reliable team members and business partners, but they also make for helpful dating advice.
10 Famous Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today. Nowadays, the American Psychological Association has a Code of Conduct in place when it comes to ethics in psychological experiments.

Experimenters must adhere to various rules pertaining to everything from confidentiality to consent to overall beneficence. Review boards are in place to enforce these ethics. But the standards were not always so strict, which is how some of the most famous studies in psychology came about. 1. The Little Albert Experiment At Johns Hopkins University in 1920, John B. Watson tested classical conditioning on a 9-month-old baby he called Albert B.
Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self - Daphne Simeon, Jeffrey Abugel. Finding Your Work Sweet Spot: Genuine Interest, Skills & Opportunity. There are two types of work in this world.

The first is the laborious kind, which I call “work with obligation.”
When talking about your problems actually makes them worse. It is a truth universally acknowledged that talking through your problems makes them go away.

Well, not exactly. Walter Mischel, the psychologist who put a marshmallow in front of four-year-olds and discovered that those who could delay the gratification of eating it went on to succeed more than their peers who scoffed it straightaway, has come up with another gem. He has discovered that talking about your trauma doesn’t, as is often advised, necessarily diminish the ill effects, but can make them worse.
47 Mind-Blowing Psychology-Proven Facts You Should Know About Yourself. I’ve decided to start a series called 100 Things You Should Know about People.

As in: 100 things you should know if you are going to design an effective and persuasive website, web application or software application. Or maybe just 100 things that everyone should know about humans! The order that I’ll present these 100 things is going to be pretty random.
Psychology of Color [Infographic]
Perhaps no choice is as vital to marketing as color.

Whether you are selecting the color for a product or for your email marketing campaign, color has tremendous impact on all of us. Subconsciously, we associate different colors with different things. This infographic examines the psychology of color and looks at some common associations of different colors. It shows the overall importance of color to consumers and characteristics of many individual colors, and it also helps show the connection between graphic design and psychology. The numbers are pretty fascinating!
The Psychology of Color [Infographic]

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Room Color and How it Affects Your Mood. The colors of the rooms within your home need to bring out your personality. While most of us may not spend a lot of time thinking about room color, it affects every day of our lives. Room color can influence our mood and our thoughts. Colors affects people in many ways, depending upon one’s age, gender, ethnic background or local climate. Certain colors or groups of colors tend to get a similar reaction from most people – the overall difference being in the shade or tones used. So when it comes to decorating, it is important to choose wisely.
Psychology studies relevant to everyday life from PsyBlog. Theories of Personality.

Personality psychology is the study of the development of personality, the effects of personality on important outcomes, and attempts to make beneficial changes to maladaptive personality characteristics.
Brain and Physiological Psychology. Human Condition1. Mental Health. Nature Nurture debate resources. 150. Psychology. Psychology. Experimental Psychology. Positive Psychology.